A few days from now, we're going to be neck deep into E3 2013 aka The Electronic Entertainment Expo aka The Electronic Three. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past eighteen years, you know that E3 is the biggest trade show for the video game industry. We're gonna see dozens of new trailers, demos, announcements, interviews, and live streams over the next eight days or so. What does that mean in relation to you and Giant Bomb? It means there's going to be a tidal wave of new threads created to talk about this stuff and almost as many wiki submissions for new games. That is...unless you follow these simple steps to surviving the forums during E3 that former moderator @citizenkane put together over the last couple years.

A lot of what you'll see below should be utilized year-round, but especially during the insanity of E3.

Press Conferences

Starting Thursday morning and then continuing on Monday and Tuesday, you are going to see threads dedicated to each press conference (Konami, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Nintendo). These threads will be posted and stickied shortly before each press conference and are the go-to place for any and all discussion for their respective press conferences before, during, and after the show is over. So, don't go posting a brand new thread each time someone new walks out on stage and says something dumb/funny/insane/amazing. Let's try to keep it all in one place.

• Konami - Thursday, June 6 @ 10:00 AM PDT / 1:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM GMT
• Microsoft - Monday, June 10 @ 9:30 AM PDT / 12:30 PM EDT / 4:30 PM GMT
• Electronic Arts - Monday, June 10 @ 1:00 PM PDT / 4:00 PM EDT / 9:00 PM GMT
• Ubisoft - Monday, June 10 @ 3:00 PM PDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 10:00 PM GMT
• Sony - Monday, June 10 @ 6:00 PM PDT / 9:00 PM EDT / 1:00 AM GMT
• Nintendo - Tuesday, June 11 @ 7:00 AM PDT / 10:00 AM EDT / 2:00 PM GMT

If you're interested in creating a banner for the Press Conference threads, check out the photoshop contest thread!

CitizenKane's Patented Bullet Points of Recapping

• There will be an official discussion thread for each of the six major press conferences.
• These threads will be pinned to the top of all boards and to each company's respective forum.
• Only general discussion of the press conferences will be allowed in these threads.

Individual Games

We know you want to talk about all these glorious new games that are about to get announced. But, there's no sense in fifty duders creating a new thread to talk about that thing that Jack Tretton just announced 18 seconds ago. And, in case you didn't know, every game in the Giant Bomb database has a forum attached to it. Tidy organization is built right in! All you have to do is utilize it. Did Ubisoft just announce some crazy new feature in Watch_Dogs? Well, guess where you should start a thread to talk about it? You guessed it.

The idea here is to not clog up the General Discussion. Any thread that is about a specific game should be attached to that game's forum. If a moderator spots your thread about Battlefield 4's exclusive pre-order bonus in General, it's going to get moved, so help us out and just start by posting it where it should go.

If you're confused, let's break it down.

...AND THEN...

E3 is fast and furious, so we know there are going to be duplicates, but help us out by taking a few seconds to check first. The dupes that get through will soon be locked anyway.

But...but...but...What if there's no page for the game I want to talk about?!

Well, the answer is pretty simple. Go ahead and make a page for it. Before you do, though, make doubly sure there's not already one created. Sometimes, when a new page is created, it takes a bit of time to show up in search. Here's a tip for you:

THIS PAGE HAS THE MOST RECENTLY ADDED GAMES!

Even if someone submitted it 3 seconds ago, it's going to be there. So, use that instead of just checking the search bar. The mods will be monitoring the wiki queue like hawks trying to get the new stuff through as quickly as possible.

CitizenKane's Patented Bullet Points of Recapping: Part Deux

• Any topics about individual games should be placed inside their respective games' forums and NOT in General Discussion.
• Check for already existing threads about what you want to talk about.
• Topics not in the correct place will be moved by moderators immediately.
• Any user who continues to post such topics in GD will receive an official warning. So be cool. Follow these simple steps, and have fun. It's E3 time!

Summary

E3 is one of the most fun times of the year for anyone who loves games. It's fast. It's chaotic. It's sometimes ridiculous and/or hilarious. All of us here in the Giant Bomb community want to have a good time with all the news, announcements, trailers, and late-night podcasts. So, let's all do our part to keep things as organized as possible so everyone can find anything they're looking for during E3 2013.

Got questions? Feel free to post them here so that anyone else with the same/similar question can get helped at the same time.

Let's do this!

Bookmarked! Now I just need to remember that the UK is currently in BST and not GMT.

Is that going to be the case here, though? I have to imagine an event of this import is going to result in a lot of new content being added to the site in a very short amount of time, possibly clogging up response times.

@video_game_king: If a live edit user submits it, you can see it on that page immediately. Non-live edit users should probably not even bother trying to submit new games during press conferences because someone with live edit access is going to do it first.

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oh God... Konami's is tomorrow!?!?

I need to ... lie down...

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(sorry, it's compulsive now)

Been telling myself winterE3 is coming, winterE3 is coming and suddenly, Konami's conference is in 12 hours away and I jolted back in my seat in shock. Fuuuuuuu...

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spoilers KOJIMA IS THE METAL GEAR

The giantbomb community podcast has some plans in store for the major press conferences, so keep your eyes peeled!

Shit, it really is E3.

Let's do this, suckaz

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So, no watitng threads for each press conference? Or should I just make "Konami Press Conference Watitng Room" right now?

I didn't need any sleep anyway

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Motherfucker.

Have the duders indicated if they'll be livestreaming any of these?

Well, I've taken next week off work just to watch E3 stuff, so I'm ready.

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I'm ready.

@marino: What about Squarenix? They are doing a thing on the 11th at 9am to 10am.

Why did DDP leave the tape off that one finger?

E3 is totally overshadowed by Animal Crossing this year. Unless they announce Animal Crossing Wii U, which would be a dick move to make me immediately start waiting again like a day after my over 2 year wait ended.

You know what I hate about E3? For all the hype and effort that goes into it, and even on my end for trying to track everything down, I usually only come away excited about 1 or 2 things, and both are usually inevitable anyway.

You mocked my hometown Rock and offended me greatly.

@marino: Don't suppose you'd mind changing the GMT times would you? For everyone in the UK and the rest of Europe they're all an hour too early, i.e. It's 17:22 here in the UK and the Konami thing isn't until 18:00. Cheers

@markini6: Listing GMT is pretty convenient for anyone that knows their timezone offset from GMT. If you happen to be under BST right now (GMT+1), I don't think it's that tough to just add one hour.

@markini6: GMT is GMT. I don't see what's so hard to figure out. If you're in the UK, you're on BST, which is GMT +1 right now. Not everyone does Summer/Daylight time, and GMT is still the standard on how people decipher time zones.

@marino: @chaser324: Was only asking for the sake of laziness, must admit I didn't think many people used GMT who weren't an hour ahead currently, or who didn't reference their times to either PDT or EDT. As you were.

I panicked seeing those GMT times, then realised everything would be an hour later so I'm alright.

Pro tip for anyone who can't watch the presser's live. Before E3 starts there will be a spoiler free thread on NeoGAF so you can find each press conference replay and watch the megabombs the way they meant to be seen.

Damn, I didn't realise everything was on Monday, that's cool. I am excited.

Maybe people would be more comfortable with the times if you also added Swatch Internet Time. And by people I mean Jeff.

Hey, yall, E3 is happening!

Nintendo just rolled up, ready to go.

I thought Nintendo weren't doing a "Press Conference" this year. Did they change their minds or something?

@djames216: Maybe they're going to crash the Sony/MS conferences with giant Luigi?

Sony @3AM. Am I insane? Will I stay up even though I can just as well see the rerun? YES.

They're going to post a Nintendo Direct video at 7 AM.

Looks like I'll be able to watch none of the press conferences live this year. Going to be working for Microsoft and Nintendo and probably asleep for the Sony one :(. Oh well

holy shit E3 is tomorrow!

listening to Jeff drive to e3. Not sure what that says about my life...

I think we all know how this is going to end up tomorrow...

E3 STARTS IN APPROXIMATELY 7 HOURS. THAT MEANS I HAVE APPROXIMATELY 7 HOURS TO SLEEP.

LET'S DO THIS.

I'm pretty sure that Sony is going to have a similar overall system and policies as Microsoft, but man, I would really like it if they'd surprise me. Just come out and blow us away.

It'd be cool if Nintendo did the same. Really give us news and meme-worthy videos.

great work @marino ty for keeping me fed :)

I am E3.

Ah come on GB, it says your show starts at 4am but now it wont officially start till 4:30am which means an unofficial start of 5!!!

My mind, body and soul cannot take this.

Thanks everybody. That went relatively smoothly.